The Republican-sponsored bill, however, was not intended to alleviate poverty. It was an effort to exploit the plight of low-wage workers as a lever to extract hundreds of billions in additional wealth for the super-rich. The minimum wage bill was only brought up for a vote after the Republican leadership added a provision that would have put an end to inheritance taxes on individual estates worth up to $5 million and on joint estates worth up to $10 million.

Failure of the bill means that the minimum wage has remained unchanged for almost nine years. The Senate voted 56-42 in favor of the legislation, four votes short of succeeding, with four Senate Democrats joining Republicans. The House had passed the bill on Saturday.

Republicans have been obsessed with doing away with what they refer to as the “death tax”—which will be phased out completely by 2010, but will rise back to 55 percent on estates larger than $1 million in 2011 if new legislation is not put in place. An effort to make the abolition of the estate tax permanent failed to pass the Senate earlier this year, and proposals to reduce the tax rate on inherited wealth also became bogged down. The minimum wage bill was seized on as a suitable vehicle instead.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/aug2006/wage-a05.shtml